Homo Nequam Frugi Poem by Anthony Weir

When I was young my main
ambition was to be wise.
Now I realise
that wisdom resides in understanding
the worthlessness of wisdom.
O to live the unexamined life of stone or tree!

Those who believe in gods or a god and paradise
think they're not animals,
and freely force themselves to be
zombies as the mummy-lords decree.

Pity our intelligence, our demon-bride
which has evolved just enough to wreck
and slaughter everything that we evolved from
- but not enough to bless or even tolerate the planet.
The nearest that we get to rationality is suicide.


God knows:
wisdom is the opposite of love
(which is elaborate appropriation)
- and the instrument
most suitable for the operation
of writing poems
is a spade.

I saw God again
the other day
behind the slaughterhouse of right and wrong
in an old fur coat the colour of jade
digging up bones.

Either all life is sacred or none is:
any betweenthought
is mere theology
the opposite of wisdom.

I spoke to a turd
another day.
No reply.
That turd was smart
rejected art.

The paradox of truth
is that the invention of the concept
makes false all that is human.
The nearest that we get to rationality is suicide.

To be fatherless
is a privilege.
To live alone
is not to be disappointed
by people
but to be less disappointed
by oneself,
to be beyond affinitive election.
O, the solipsistic maze of introspection!

Little that man creates
is not contemptible.
Time is the absence of bliss.
'Who will save me from Existence? '
Only myself, denying the monotony
of unwished-for echo and abyss.

'Tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe.' - Pascal